The Death of Hope: Shattered Past Book 6 (Destiny 2)

24: Two Minutes to Midnight

 At the end of their rampage, the two brothers arrived at the landing pad where a rather elaborate Harvester was parked. James left Caesar behind to cover their escape to the Almighty, it seemed as if their plan was all falling into place. James theorized that with all of the destruction he and Caesar had been causing, the commander fleeing aboard the harvester only made sense, so much so that nobody would suspect a thing. The two transmatted into the Cabal ship as it flew off into the distance. James sat down on the floor, looking back at the Earth from a viewport on the side of the vessel as they headed to Mercury.

"Be safe Caesar.." James thought to himself ejecting a magazine from his hand cannon to examine the amount of ammo left. Michael stood crossing his arms a few from his brother, he looked rather relaxed. His SIVA gave him a massive advantage over the Cabal, and while intimidation was his main game, he was no slouch in single combat either.

"I wonder what's bothering him?" Michael thought to himself. "Hey,"

James then perked up his head throwing the magazine back into his pistol putting it in the holster. "Yeah?" He asked still sitting on the floor.

"You alright? You don't seem like yourself," Michael said putting his hands in his pockets.

"I'm alright Michael," James replied walking up to the front of the ship. "But...there's one thing that bothers me, it's about the Cabal leader,"

"Ghaul?"

"Yeah..." James said clenching the fist of his left arm. "What do we even know about him?"

"I know enough," Michael replied. "He was a runt. In Cabal custom, if a child isn't of a particular build when they are born, they are cast aside. Forgotten for not being strong enough. However, fate had other plans for him, he was brought up by an ancient Cabal scholar, raised with one goal in mind: to dispose of the Cabal Emperor Callus. It was through him that he learned of the Traveler and its power and sought to claim it for the glory of his empire." Michael said creating an image of the events in his head. "However, to do that, he had to become Emperor himself. He entered the gladitorial arenas and much like the warriors of Earth who did the same, found himself in favor of the social elite. Then, in the middle of the night, Ghaul staged a coup and deposed of Callus and his loyalists, sending them to the deep abyss of space. He then declared a reformation, where there was ceiling of a class system."

James looked at his brother in pure inquiry. "After he deposed of Callus he reformed the government, and made the Cabal into the military powerhouse that we know today. The Red Legion is his personal piece of the army, and he was the one who developed the almighty."

"How do we disable it?"

"You see, that's the tricky part, we can't just turn it off, at any of the stations on board,"

"What? Why not?"

"Because, as a contingency plan, Dominus hooked up the main control unit for the Almighty on the Immortal. That way he has complete control over who is using his machine. Also, destroying it wouldn't work, as simply breaking the hold the fission cannon has on the star would just cause the explosion to occur prematurely."

"In turn meaning the sun explodes, engulfing mercury and possibly Venus before the darkness engulfs the Earth." James said crossing his arms. "What options are left?"

"We cause an overheat. If we break the cooling system, then the beam deactivates and can't be used again until it's repaired. The Almighty possesses a unique shut down sequence, if it is overheating, it shuts down automatically, as to no kill the fleet protecting it in event of a shut down."

"Alright, and where is that?"

"Directly underneath the beam emitter,"

"Wow...out of the fire and into the furnace," James said aloud.